Omagh hum: Source of mystery noise traced but not made public
Omagh hum: Source of mystery noise traced but not made public
A council investigation into the night-time noise has ended, but its source remains a mystery.
The source of a mystery humming sound which has plagued people living in Omagh may now have been identified – but is not being made public.
People in the County Tyrone town first started to report a persistent humming that was keeping them them awake in the second half of last year.
A Fermanagh and Omagh District Council investigation has now ended.
John Boyle, the council’s director of community and wellbeing, said it had been “complex” but had been able to “hone in on a specific spot”.
Mr Boyle said the noise “wasn’t audible every night", and was linked to atmospheric conditions, making the investigation very difficult.
“We were able to hone in on a specific spot, and undertook a targeted screening exercise with a number of industrial businesses using equipment on a 24-hour basis," he said.
“However, a particular premises became the focus, and environmental health officers engaged with the management.
“While nothing was absolutely concluded, the noise did cease in a sense, but we will keep the complaint open and under review over the next number of months."
He told the council’s regeneration and community committee the council had received a total of 11 hum complaints.
Ben Jordan on YouTube made a video not long ago about mystery hums and came up with a decent theory… pipelines. Something between the pressures and size of them. He explains it better than I can but I wonder how many cases this could be related to.
Years ago around Swanage and the surrounding areas there was low humming, I'm thinking early 2000's. It was speculated it was caused by oil drilling in the nearby area but nothing was ever confirmed. I seem to remember it popped up now and then in local newspapers. But again, nothing confirmed.
BP were operating in the local area at the time...
Slightly unrelated but the same speculated site, now operated be Perenco, had an oil leak quite recently into Poole harbour. I don't know if that was fixed fast but the news came and went very quicky. Nobody talks about it now. Perhaps it wasn't as bad as it was first thought. I don't know.
It suddenly appeared, so I doubt it was/is a pipeline.
There are quite a few mystery hums and odd noises reported and it is often difficult to pin down, it sounds like the council have done a very thorough piece of detective work.